SIMULTANEOUS DETERMINATION OF 8 QUINOLONE ANTIBACTERIALS IN MEAT AND FISH BY HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY

A simple, rapid and reliable high performance liquid chromatographic ( HPLC) method for the simultaneous determination of eight quinolones (o xolinic acid, nalidixic acid, flumequine, piromidic acid, benofloxacin , danofloxacin, enrofloxacin and ofloxacin) in meat and fish has been developed. The drugs were extracted with 0.2% metaphosphoric acid-acet onitrile (7:3), followed by a Bond Elut C-18 clean-up procedure. The H PLC separation was carried out on a Wakosil II 5C(18)-HG column (150x4 .6 mm i.d.) with 0.05M phosphate buffer (pH 2.5)-acetonitrile (65:35) containing 3.5 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.5 ml/min. The drugs were detected by UV detection (at 282 nm) and fluorescence detection (wavelength programing). The calib ration graphs were rectilinear from 0.1 to 2 ng for danofloxacin, and from 1 to 20 ng for other drugs. The recoveries of the drugs from meat and fish fortified at the level of 0.2 mu g/g were 80.8 similar to 92 .1%, with high precision. The limit of detection was 0.01 mu g/g for e ach drug. The method was applied in thermal stability studies of resid ual oxolinic acid. The thermal stability of oxolinic acid was excellen t.